Comment by zarzavat
5 hours ago
Apple prioritizes price stability over price competitiveness. They will happily charge formerly eye-watering prices for extra RAM and their customers will less happily pay them. On the other hand, Apple rarely change their prices after release except in cases of extreme currency devaluation. They simply raise the price when the new model comes out.
They do this for their own reasons but it's helping them in this crisis. They can simply accept lower margins in the short term, in the knowledge that in the long term these price fluctuations even out.
From the perspective of the producers Apple are a consistent purchaser with deep pockets. AI companies may be willing to pay more for RAM in the short term, but Apple is a safer customer. The current AI bubble may or may not burst, but people will keep buying iPhones regardless. The producers do not want to freeze Apple out because Apple is their hedge against the bubble bursting.
Lenovo may not be a low volume purchaser but they are not at Apple's scale nor are Lenovo's customers willing to pay the premium that Apple's customers are.
I don’t think we’ve seen the lower margins in Apple’s financial reports.
Also, their computers have been getting more storage/RAM competitive as time has gone on. Literally just by time passing and prices staying the same.
Lenovo is beyond Apple’s scale when it comes to PC sales. They are #1 in volume. Apple is #4. Apple sells more iPhones but Lenovo does also own Motorola which is not nothing. We can also look at Samsung: a wildly high volume company who has their own production lines of major components like RAM and displays but they still sell their 2026 laptops at eye watering price increases.
Apple literally buys displays from Samsung.
Lenovo is beyond Apple’s scale, sure, but Apple has relatively few product lines. I imagine that makes it so the few parts they end up doing they have massive volume on.